


Family is Semantics

by magebird



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Domestic, Gen, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-23 04:27:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/618060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magebird/pseuds/magebird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coming back and becoming a father is harder than he could have imagined. Luckily, as always, Arthur is there to pick up the slack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Family is Semantics

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt:** [Arthur regularly checks up on (and/or spends time with) Cobb’s kids since neither Mal nor Cobb can anymore. So he checks up on them, helps them with homework, maybe calls them and asks them what they’ve done every day, comforts them when they cry. He’s their Arthur. Their support. They love him to pieces. Cue Cobb coming back and interacting with his children for the first time in awhile. Is there some jealousy between him and Arthur for Arthur’s role, or does he wind up calling Arthur in the middle of the night for help (with Arthur being a totally badass Mama!Daddy and knowing exactly what to do).](http://community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/3434.html?thread=2945642#t2945642)

The phone wakes him at half past one, and James is sick so there’s no question of whether or not he’ll roll over and go back to sleep. Arthur doesn’t bother to try and make himself all that presentable, just throws on a t-shirt and jacket over his pajama pants and makes the drive to Cobb’s house without stopping for such petty things as stop-signs.

The lights are all on in the living room, and he lets himself in with the key Dom mailed him the day he took a plane out of the country and left his children behind. James is bundled in blankets on the couch, with the TV playing cartoons at a low volume, and Arthur can smell coffee and the scent of exhaustion coming off Dom in waves when he comes over to murmur a greeting.

Have you given him anything, Arthur asks, and Dom is haggard when he shakes his head.

He wouldn’t take it.

Was it cherry? He likes grape.

A flicker crosses Dom’s face, something like pain that he doesn’t know these things, doesn’t know the thousand little details that he should, that he needs. The things acquired over years Arthur had been forced to learn in months, to step up and provide when it was needed. 

It’s alright, Arthur tells him, and wishes he could make him believe.

James has a fever of 100.3, and Arthur walks back and forth with him in his arms for ten minutes while Dom drives to the store and back to try and find the right kind of syrup, holding an ice pack wrapped in a towel to James’ back and telling him a rambling story in a low, soothing voice. 

He’s done this before, with both the children, when they caught the flu together on the same weekend that their grandmother had to fly back to Paris for her sister’s funeral. The scent of the boy’s hot skin reminds him of those days, before he got a call from Cobb telling him there was this job and leaving the question of families unspoken.

Phillipa comes down the stairs, taking them slowly, one at a time, and sits near Arthur’s leg, her arm wrapped around his shin, her solid form leaning up against him, throwing him just a little off balance. She’s warm too, but in a different way, a solid presence, and she asks him if daddy’s gone away again.

Only for a moment, he promises, and glances at the door. Daddy wants to get some medicine for James, he says, and she trusts him so she believes.

Dom comes back with the medicine, and Phillipa goes to cling to him instead, sleepy but unwilling to risk coming down to find him gone in the morning. Dom hoists her up, supporting her with one arm, breathing the scent of her hair, watching Arthur play doctor to his son. They all find space on the couch, Arthur and Dom making small talk below the level of the TV’s volume, and their voices are familiar to the children, who sleep, content, in the protection of their arms.


End file.
